ROMARIN SAILING STORIES
Long Ago and Far Away
copyright 2014 Edwin P. Cutler
TEENAGE GUILT
Sunday morning in church, I was at peace with the world. Saturday I had played hooky and gone swimming in the Patuxent River. Playing hooky to go swimming always left me feeling guilty, but peaceful.
My mother was the church organist and my only problem was to stay awake during the sermon. I was already nodding when Foot Perry's mother brought a little brown paper bag up to the organ and handed it to my mother. She sat it down beside the organ and began playing the opening hymn. I didn't yet know that I was in trouble.
It all started when I and a friend of mine rode our bicycles down to the Patuxent river. Summers in Maryland were hot as Hades, and to dive into the cool water was a relief from the heat. Since I was playing hooky I didn't have a bathing suit with me and swam in my underpants.
We commandeered some little boats that belonged to a fisherman and played pirates.
A school buddy came down with a pole and an old sheet and sailing was invented. We all crowded into one boat, and the memory that I was to take into my future was a summer day with light breezes wafting over the summer farmland fields, breezes that filled the sail and carried us across the river farther than we had ever rowed as pirates.
We were still playing when Foot Perry drove down to the river in his 1929 Ford sedan and swam with us.
We usually pumped or pushed our bicycles up the hills to get home, but on this milestone occasion, Foot offered to take us up the steep sandy hills.
I put on my dry clothes and my friend and I each put an arm out a window held our bicycles on a running board. What a slick way to avoid all that uphill pedal pushing.
Not until after church and we were in the car, heading home did mother open the bag and pull out a wet pair of my underpants. Cam you imagine how embarrassing it would be to have someone find your underpants in the back seat of someone's car.
I was sure I was in for it. But to my surprise, my parents simply suggested I tell them when I was going swimming so they would know where to look for me when I drowned.
For some reason, perhaps because playing hooky was no longer a devious thrill, I never went swimming in the Patuxent again, but was left with dreams of sailing bigger boats on bigger seas.